Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Orange County Supervisors in California have sent a strong message to Planned Parenthood.

The county has money to distribute to nonprofit operations from a past tobacco lawsuit settlement. Supervisor Chris Norby says the board discovered part of the money was going to the strongest abortion business in the country.

"We did vote to suspend the contract to the Planned Parenthood portion of it because of their involvement in abortion because the feeling was that the other organizations did not provide abortions, were mostly disseminators of information, but Planned Parenthood has special baggage because of that mission," he notes.

Planned Parenthood will have to look elsewhere for money, according to Norby. "They're free to do it," he points out. "It is legal, but it doesn't mean that it has to be subsidized at taxpayer's expense and that's what the issue was that we were dealing with."

The supervisors announced their unanimous agreement. "The board did make a statement. It was a five-to-zero vote that this particular relationship would not continue," Norby concludes.